


Wheel of Fortune

by yunitsa



Category: Rome
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-22
Updated: 2007-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunitsa/pseuds/yunitsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which our heroes are reunited somewhere out East, and Pullo gives Vorenus a reply to his message. Post 2x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wheel of Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> A short bit of self-indulgence before being inevitably jossed by the finale, handwaving any Important Historical Consequences.

In the end, after all the months of journeying and the search through an enemy camp, all he has to do is lift a flap of heavy cloth and duck inside. It's dark in the tent after the punishing Eastern sunlight: he makes out Vorenus at first as a silhouette sitting on the camp bed, bent down to unfasten his breast-plate. Then he raises his head at the noise, and a stray shaft of sunlight hits his face.

He looks younger if anything, Pullo thinks, despite the years. The time in Egypt has been good to him. He had been right, after all, to go there. Right after all to leave.

"Pullo," Vorenus says, calmly pleased, and it is as though they'd last met yesterday. Pullo comes forward to stand before him, wondering if he should salute; but then Vorenus stands and says "Brother," low, and they embrace instead.

"I'm here with Octavian," he admits. "He said he thought we two could work something out -- some sort of truce."

"There will be no truce," Vorenus says. "Not after all that's past."

"I know."

They stare at each other for a helpless moment. "I got your message," Pullo says at last, awkwardly. "For the children. Kissed them for you like you said."

"And is there any answer?" Vorenus demands, and there is such desperate hope just hidden in his eyes that Pullo lies, gods help him but he lies, because he cannot bear to see it.

"They've been good children," he says. "They send their respect and their love." He takes Vorenus' face between his hands and kisses him firmly, once on each cheek, for the younger Vorena and for Lucius. But then he remembers their sister's cold look of hatred, to the last, and he cannot lie that far. So he kisses him a third time on the mouth, for himself.

It lasts longer than it should; he feels it, and does not stop. He doesn't know where this hunger for contact comes from, whether it is new or has been buried all the time, only that he finds it answered. Vorenus' mouth opens beneath his and his hands close hard around his shoulders; they stumble back onto the bed and Pullo holds himself up above him, almost nose to nose.

"That wasn't part of the message," he says, breathing hard.

"Somehow I figured that," Vorenus says dryly. His hands drift upward, gentle on neck and ears and the back of his skull, and Pullo shuts his eyes in mindless pleasure. Like a cat -- they had them everywhere in Egypt, he remembers, the smug bastards.

"I've missed you," he mutters, despite himself -- he'd meant to say "we've missed you," give some news of the collegium, something. When Vorenus' hands still, he winces, but then they tighten again, pulling him down into the juncture of neck and shoulder. He breathes in there for a moment, feeling his heart ease, and then he fights back against the pressure just enough to angle them into another kiss.

Pullo feels no urgency -- doesn't think about where this is heading, only that after all he's lost it's even more of a wonder to have Vorenus here, solid and real beneath him. He wants to believe it: his body has always been his best anchor to reality. For a moment, it is that simple.

They part at last, only enough for breath, their foreheads touching. "What do we do?" Pullo demands: it's been so long since he's had anyone to ask that question of.

Vorenus pushes at his shoulder until he can roll out from underneath him; sits on the side of the bed and picks up his breast-plate again. "That depends. What does Octavian expect you to do?"

It hits him like a bucket of cold water, like the warmth now missing along his front: that they are on opposite sides here, that their time is short. He reaches over and takes the breast-plate and tosses it aside, where it falls to the floor with a dull clatter. "Not yet," he says, half order and half plea. If they can only be together for a little while longer, maybe he'll be able to think of something. They have always been better together than apart--

"Come here," he says, definitely more order, and his hand closes on the hard flesh of Vorenus' thigh.

He anticipates a struggle, but Vorenus only raises his eyebrows -- is this another change in him, Alexandrian morality? Or does he feel it too, this pull suddenly intensified by their closeness? -- and leans down. He touches Pullo's face, his eyes grave. "We should be thinking about our strategy. While we dally here, Fortune's wheel is turning."

But Pullo has already been thinking about his strategy. There are suddenly a vast number of things he wants to know, while there's still time -- the sounds Vorenus makes when he's close, whether his back arches, what his skin tastes like sheened with sweat. He can do this, if nothing else; he can show him, like this, before any other disaster befalls them. He draws Vorenus to him, tugging at his clothes, bites the pulse at his neck to make him gasp; says, "Let it turn."


End file.
